Q&A: Logical Impossibilities, the Sages, and Quantum Theory
Logical Impossibilities, the Sages, and Quantum Theory
Question
Hello and blessings,
Two questions:
A. Do you think the Sages believed that a logical impossibility is something that could actually exist? On the one hand, there is the Mishnah in Berakhot about a “vain prayer,” which implies that such a thing is impossible; but on the other hand, there are several statements in the Sages that seem to imply otherwise. For example, the law in Berakhot 31b regarding someone who fasts on the Sabbath: they tear up a decree against him of seventy years, but then they come back and punish him for violating the requirement of Sabbath enjoyment. And indeed Rav Hai Gaon wrote about this: “And ‘they come back and punish him for Sabbath enjoyment’ we do not read, for there is no such thing as an act that has both reward and punishment upon it at one and the same time in the same respect. Rather, if it is a commandment, there is no punishment for it, and if there is punishment for it, then it is a transgression; and the Sabbath includes the commandment of enjoyment, and fasting on it was only permitted for a dream, and only on that very day, and only for one whose heart depends on it because he is in danger.” And the matter of “the place of the Ark did not take up space” also seems to point in that direction. Were there already differing views among the Sages on this issue, with some of them holding, like the well-known views of Chabad and Breslov on this matter, that logical impossibilities can exist?
B. Does quantum theory provide any proof at all regarding logical impossibilities, or is there no connection between the two issues?
Thank you!
Answer
A few different questions got mixed together here.
1. There is no such thing as believing in the possibility of contradictions. And quantum theory is not relevant to that. See my article on quantum theory and belief in contradictions.
2. So anyone who does believe in this does so only because he is confused.
3. Therefore it doesn’t really matter to me what the Sages thought about the issue. And even if it did matter, there are many Sages, and it’s hard to say one single thing about all of them.
4. The passages you mentioned are not dealing with contradictions. Aside from the matter of the Ark, and even that is talking about physics, not logic. I’ve written several times about the fact that applying logic to physics always involves additional assumptions.
Discussion on Answer
What is contradictory here? There is this aspect and that aspect to fasting. And to the World of Emanation too.
There is also no logical contradiction at all in a vain prayer. At most, it is a physical impossibility. And even that isn’t so, since the Holy One, blessed be He, can perform sex-reassignment surgery in the womb. And revive people who died in a fire.
The question is definitional: is fasting on the Sabbath a transgression or a commandment (assuming every act can be defined in one of two ways—good or bad)? And the World of Emanation as well—is it divinity or a created being?
As for the World of Emanation, if it is both, then it is undefined and becomes a concept with no theological meaning, so what exactly is it meant to express?
I’m sensing stubbornness for its own sake. So think about the following two questions, and don’t answer right away:
1. Is the rule that a commandment that comes through a transgression is invalid a logical consequence? Is the verse unnecessary?
2. Is a human being material or spiritual, in your opinion?
Thank you very much!
Why isn’t the passage about fasting on the Sabbath a contradiction? Rav Hai saw it as a contradiction, and therefore even emended it out of the Talmud.
Many also explained the passage about a vain prayer as a logical contradiction.
Another question that occurred to me: is the kabbalistic idea of the “World of Emanation” a logical contradiction (a world that is divine and non-divine at once)?